5. Conclusions
Although our reference sites were not truly undisturbed but
rather were the least disturbed, the results indicated that the
general ecological status of ecoregion I1 was “fair” and ecoregion
I2 was “poor”, both lower than “good.” Therefore, our study
demonstrated an urgent need for an appropriate management and
restoration policy in the Taihu Basin. Moreover, to attain a better
ecological status, differences among ecoregions should be considered
when developing management measures in the basin. The
MMIs constructed for the two ecoregions successfully reflected the
structure and characteristics of regional benthic macroinvertebrates
and can be used as assessment tools in ecological
biomonitoring and management of the Taihu basin.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by “the Major Science and Technology
Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment of China”
(2012ZX07501-001-03, 2012ZX07506-001-01, and 2012ZX07506-
006-01). We thank colleagues at Nanjing Institute of Geography
and Limnology and Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Environmental
Science for water chemistry analyses, and assistance with benthic
macroinvertebrates sampling and processing. We thank two
anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and critical
review of this paper.